My Genealogy Hound

Hon. John E. Organ, editor and publisher of the Salem Monitor, at Salem, Mo., was born in Champaign County, Ohio, April 7, 1838, and is the son of James and Amanda L. (Parry) Organ. James Organ is a native of the “Keystone State,” born in 1802, and was married in Ohio. He immigrated to White County, Ind., in 1848, and in 1858 moved to Dent County, Mo., where he now resides. His wife, Amanda L. (Parry) Organ, was born in Augusta County, Va., in 1810, and died in 1881. She was the mother of seven children, John E. being the second. He was educated in the common schools of Indiana and Ohio, studying mathematics under a private instructor. He came with his parents to Dent County in 1858, and during that year, and in 1859, followed the teacher’s profession. In the last named year he was elected surveyor of Phelps County, and served until the breaking out of the Civil War, when, in 1861, he enlisted in a detached cavalry company, Confederate States army, in the State Guard, and was second lieutenant of the same. At the end of six months he recruited a company, or nearly so, and in March, 1862, was captured and held prisoner six months, being exchanged at Vicksburg, where he enlisted in Company E, Eighth Regiment Missouri Infantry, and was made first sergeant of the company. He served until June, 1865, when he surrendered at Shreveport, La., under Kirby Smith. He was in the fights at Prairie Grove, Little Rock, Pleasant Hill, Jenkins’ Ferry and others. After the war he returned to teaching, and followed this for several terms. August 20, 1867, he married Miss Martha L. Burkitt, a native of Phelps County, Mo., born June 14, 1843. This union resulted in the birth of four children: Minnie, James B., Perry and Daisy E. In 1873 Mr. Organ bought the Salem Monitor, and has since been its publisher. In 1874 he was elected to the State Legislature by the Democratic party; in 1878 was again elected, and still again in 1884. In 1880 he was an elector for the Eleventh Congressional District, on the National ticket, for Hancock and English. In 1886 his name was presented to the Democratic Convention, Twenty-second Senatorial District, for nomination to the State Senate, against five competitors, but he was defeated after a protracted campaign of nearly four months, two dead-locked conventions, and more than 800 ballots, only lacking one vote of a nomination on several, and but for the treachery of one delegate he would have been successful. Mr. Organ is a very extensive land-holder, owning about 40,000 acres, and has also considerable interest in iron mines, and large property in Salem. Mr. Organ is a man well posted politically, better, perhaps, than any other man in Dent County; he is an able-writer, a practical newspaper man, and one of the most influential men of Dent County. He is a member of the A. O. U. W.